Police: Ex-cop killed wife, spent days with body

MALTA, N.Y. (AP) — A 69-year-old retired police officer killed his wife inside their upstate New York home last week, then spent several days with the body, authorities said Monday.

A sheriff's deputy looking into the welfare of 65-year-old Kathleen Wilkinson found her body Sunday on a bedroom floor in her home in Malta, 20 miles north of Albany, Saratoga County District Attorney James Murphy III said.

She was killed during a domestic dispute last week with her husband, Charles Wilkinson, a retired officer in Long Island's Nassau County, Murphy said. The man spent the weekend in the house with the body before letting the deputy in after police received calls from her acquaintances saying they hadn't heard from her for several days, the prosecutor said.

Friends of the woman had gone to the home, but Charles Wilkinson wouldn't let them in, Murphy said.

His wife was strangled and asphyxiated, an autopsy determined.

Wilkinson was charged with second-degree murder and was being held in the county jail without bail. Murphy said he didn't know whether Wilkinson had a lawyer.

Wilkinson retired after 13 years with the Nassau County Police Department. The couple had lived in Malta for about 10 years and have two adult children who live in the Boston area, Murphy said.

The slaying occurred in a tidy suburban development a few miles south of Saratoga Springs. Neighbors spoke highly of the couple and said they weren't aware of any domestic issues, Murphy said.

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"We're very lucky to have very few murders," he said. "Certainly it's very disturbing to have it happen in a very quiet neighborhood."

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